Falling
by polotiz
Summary: Snow is not the only thing falling at Christmas - ONE-SHOT


**Falling**

**Disclaimer: **TNT and Tess Gerritsen own them BUT they are on top of my Christmas List. I've been really good Santa... I promise...

**Rating:** K

**Category:** Romance...? (or the beginnings of)

**Pairing: **Rizzles OBVIOUSLY

**Warnings: **Snow drifts might have been harmed in the making of this fic.

**Summary: **ONE-SHOT: Christmas Fluff. Because I live in scorching weather and I want snow, damnit!

**Author's Note :** So, I was recently challenged by IsaBabisa to write something purely fluffy for the holidays... Not my usual genre I freely admit, and definitely not my usual style, but... I can't back down from a challenge so... here 'tis, for whatever it's worth. Came to me over a glass of wine and believe it or not, watching Angie Harmon on Conan. I believe in the right circumstances, there can be a whole lotta Angie in Jane :)

Hope you enjoy... I had fun, plus it kept the stubborn muses creating (as they're both being petulant children at the moment)

Happy Holidays - you guys are awesome, really. So glad I stumbled across this little R&amp;I family

T

* * *

She stands outside in her red winter alpine jacket, snow pants and boots… knee deep in the very same snow that had shut the roads to the cabin and almost put an end to their plans for Christmas. Arms outstretched, beaming a glorious smile up at the sky, she turns once on the spot before falling backward, the soft powder cushioning her. Her beanie slips down her forehead, covering her eyes, and a single gloved hand folds across her body to push it back up again.

She is still smiling as intermittent snowflakes float gently onto her face. She huffs at one that is threatening to drop onto her nose, directing it away from her face, then giggles to herself.

Maura can't help but touch her fingers to the window.

Of all the wonderful, deep, complex, immeasurably endearing parts of Jane Rizzoli. This – this one, without doubt, is Maura's favourite.

It was a moment exactly like this, precisely four years ago standing inside her own window in Beacon Hill, when Maura had been struck with the realisation she had fallen in love with her best friend. The revelation had been equal parts terrifying and liberating, but in the end had simply settled on agonising.

Maura sighs against the window. Jane's fingers wriggle in her ski gloves, and she lifts the bottom half of her legs out of their bent position, stuffed into the snowdrift, and lays them back down, splayed outward, powder shifting easily around her body.

Maura leans further into the kitchen counter, her face closer to the world outside. To _Jane_ outside.

Four years. Four years of falling further… harder… deeper. Four years of navigating an intensifying connection that defied them both. But equally… four years of injury and insult and threats to their friendship that promised to tear her heart to pieces.

And yes, four years of occasional lovers, and perhaps one she thought she could settle for as a compromise… that is - until she knew she couldn't.

So she had let him go, too.

A familiar ache grows in Maura's chest as she watches Jane swat playfully at the snowflakes falling across her body, arms flailing left and right, before falling outward again, a long , satisfied sigh escaping her in a puff of steam. She closes her eyes, shuffles her shoulders into the snow, and breathes deeply through her nose.

Maura's fingers trace absently across the glass. She knows she will love all of Jane, forever, but this one, this secret one, will be the one she treasures the most.

Because this _is_ her favourite Jane Rizzoli. The unguarded Jane; safe, secure, happy. The one she sees only when Jane believes nobody is watching.

Maura finds a small smile spreading across her face.

Slowly, Jane's head turns, and her eyes open, and suddenly Maura realises she is looking directly at her, through the window framed by snow. Her breath hitches and her fingers drop away, and she is staring, afraid, knowing she has been caught out. Her stomach sinks and her heart follows in turn.

But then the gloved right hand stretches out towards her, curling inwards. Once. Twice. Three times. And her head shifts, upward then down again, lips miming 'Come out here' around tiny wisps of steam.

Maura glances away, frowning. She has her winter coat and boots by the door, but the rest of her isn't dressed for it…

She looks back up again.

Jane lifts her head, lifts her forearm off the snow and slaps it back down, beckoning her.

'Please'

And Maura knows, she never even needed to ask a second time.

She moves away from the window, away from the kitchen and past the fresh pine tree standing just inside the living room, where soon gifts and tinsel and too many Christmas lights will cover it and more than likely half of the cabin, as well.

A family event like the family she never had. And she will love every minute of it.

The dark green winter coat hangs heavily by the door, and she slips it on, along with the thin black gloves she finds in her pocket. Her pants and her boots – well, they would have to do.

Opening the door to a spectacular image of the world under a blanket, she walks, carefully away from the shovelled driveway, up onto the snowdrift visible from the kitchen window. Stepping deeply and cautiously through the snow until she reaches her, Maura peers over at the long red-and-black clad body sprawled against pristine white.

"Are you having fun out here?" She asks, knowing it is a redundant question. They both know she has been watching. Jane flicks a handful of powder at her, but the throw is too lofty to do anything other than send a spray of condensed snowfall over the left side of Maura's head. She smiles despite herself and shakes it away, drawing her coat around her. "Why am I out here, Jane?" She asks.

Jane shifts her arms and legs backward and forward in the snow, making what Maura had learned three years ago was the beginning of a snow angel.

"I'm makin' angels." She says. Maura rolls her eyes.

"Jane.." She says, "Everyone will be here soon and the tree-"

"Forget the tree." Jane says, and widens her arms. "C'mon. Fall on me. It'll be fun"

_It'll be fun…_

It is a preposterous suggestion, Maura knows it. But she laughs anyway, and shakes her head "_Jane-"_

"Hey-" The voice is soft, and warm, and she lays there, still… arms outstretched, eyes glinting and smile still ever-present. "Trust me. Fall." She says.

Maura feels the back of her neck starting to tingle.

_Oh Jane, if you only knew…_

And suddenly she finds herself fidgeting, unsure.

Finally, she says "I'm not sure the tensile strength of the snow drift can safely accommodate both of our body weight," She pauses for a moment, her brow furrowed. "Especially given I'll be fall- OH!"

A wayward leg has kicked out at hers and now it is not optional, she is falling forward, and the reflex Newtonian calculations that dart through her mind are erased the moment protective arms wrap around her and a body presses against hers and a soft laugh teases her ear.

"Shhhh.. You talk too much."

She feels a breath, short and hot at her neck, before Jane nuzzles gently into her cheek. It sets Maura's stomach on fire.

"See?" Jane's voice is like gritty molasses pouring into Maura's ears. "Told you to trust me."

Now everything is on fire, so why is there a shiver running down her spine? Maura wonders if Jane can feel it too because at the very same moment, she tightens her grip around her and Maura feels the ghost of lips against the skin of her neck.

Once

Twice.

Maura immediately pulls back, eyes wide, searching. And those eyes, that _smile _stares back at her…that unguarded smile…

Her favourite secret smile. No longer secret.

Her breath catches in her throat.

A gloved hand reaches up, brushing the remaining snow tenderly from Maura's hair, before resting against her cheek.

And Maura notices that perfect smile is fading ever so slightly, just as those eyes are growing ever darker as they flick silently down, then back up again. So much so she wonders if there could possibly be a shade darker than black.

"Maur.." Jane breathes her name, as if to clarify their position. As if to give Maura a chance for escape, for retreat.

She takes neither.

Instead, her hands, which had fallen on either side of Jane's head to brace her fall, now come together behind it, pillowing her and lifting her forward, close enough that the heat between them sends condensation only outward.

"Don't you know?" She whispers, and she can feel Jane's breath against her lips, tasting the hint of the single glass of egg nog they had shared... the sensation forces a tiny gasp from her mouth and her eyes to slide closed.

"Maur-" This time, she can feel her own name as it leaves Jane's lips, feel it on the edge of everything... just as she had been, once.

She rests her forehead against Jane's, feeling the soft edge of her beanie against her skin. "Don't you know, Jane-" She repeats, her thumbs tracing the line of Jane's jaw with lightly clad gloves. "I fell for you... so long ago." And she opens her eyes, finding the very feelings she'd hidden reflected back towards her... and she realises, all it has taken - all it has taken after all this time is a single snow drift and a deliberate fall... and all she can do now is dip her head and there she finds warm lips waiting; soft, loving. Welcoming.

Forever.

"Maura.." The name falls breathlessly into her mouth.

Just as she had fallen.

And landed.

Home.


End file.
